After leaving Langres we continued on up the Canal entre Champagne et Bourgogne cruising every day apart from a 2 night stop at Joinville where we had arranged to meet up with friends Daphne and Ian on their way back to Saint Jean. Lovely to catch up with these two intrepid travellers and hear their tales of a winter in Mexico.
It was downhill all the way in the locks so very easy and quick. We had the canal virtually to ourselves, very few boats around. People seemed pleased to see a pleasure boat passing through again though and we had lots of tooting and waving. One morning a British registered Morgan and an Aston Martin travelling together stopped and waved on a bridge as we were passing underneath it.
We moored at picturesque Froncles for one night where I had my first and hopefully last boating injury of the season. There had been a shower as we were coming in to moor and I hadn't realised how slippery a wooden pontoon is when wet and banged my shin hard. Ouch. I have had several shades of bruising from my ankle to my knee.
The locks at the upstream end of this canal are renowned for being full to the top but some of them were overflowing. It makes life difficult as the fenders protecting the hull become ineffective.
How about this saucy pair spotted at one of the lock houses?
Our progress was slowed one morning when the lock keeper told us after only 2 hours on the move that we had to stop at Saint Dizier as the lock there was blocked and was unlikely to be reopened that day. We moored up to see police and pompiers ( fire fighters) at the lock. They take pollution very seriously on the waterways here and it appeared that fuel oil had been found in the water. It's not everyday you see two specimens like these in a lock!
We got on our way again next morning, left the Champagne et Bourgogne canal and got onto the Canal Lateral a La Marne, reaching Chalons en Champagne in time for our 36th wedding anniversary. After consulting Tripadvisor we decided on Les Sarments for a celebratory meal. It turned out to be a good choice as it was full even on a Tuesday evening. My dessert, the ' specialite de la maison', a Grand Marnier soufflé, was out of this world, cooked from scratch so a 20 minute wait but worth every minute.
I then left Chris to his own devices for a few days in Chalons and headed off to the UK to visit family for a long weekend including 2 family members visiting from Canada. I was able to get the train from Chalons, a five minute walk from the boat, to Paris, then the eurostar from Paris to Saint Pancras London, tube to Waterloo and then a train to within 3 miles of my daughter's house. Whilst I was gone Chris went back by train to Auxonne where we had left our car at the start of cruising, then drove to the Somme, parked the car up and returned by train, via Paris, meeting me at Gard du Nord, then we got a train back to Chalons together. Took some planning but not as daunting as it sounds and all went smoothly.
After 9 nights moored in Chalons we set off early next day for Sillery, just outside Reims. We had arranged to meet old friends affectionately known as the two Terry's and Gladys (the dog!). 3 years ago, when we were real babes in the water, they had been our saviours, holding our hands and teaching us the ropes, literally, of cruising in France. Although we have kept in touch via email and blogs we had not seen them since that first year in 2013. Within 5 minutes of mooring up we were having a drink together on the back of John and Martha's lovely old tjalk, never having met John and Martha before.
This is one of the things we love most about boating out here, you meet new people, wave goodbye, sooner or later you meet up again and are instantly like old friends. Being on the waterways is being part of a community and owning a boat gives you automatic membership.
We had a day off cruising the next day, caught up with some laundry then spent a very pleasant afternoon playing boules together followed by drinks and nibbles back on our boat. John gave us a real treat when he fetched his guitar and entertained us with a few songs.
On Friday morning we set off just after 7am behind the Terry's on Renaissance to cruise to the Canal de la Somme together. We cruised through the city of Reims which unfortunately we have not had time to explore, will have to wait until our trip back down next year. The next 3 days were the longest cruising days we have done, but we were heading for large commercial waterways which you do not want to hang around on for too long. We were also in a hurry to get through the tunnel at Braye which we knew was closing on Monday for 3 weeks for maintenance and would have meant a slightly longer journey on busier canals.
It was good to be travelling with another boat, relaying messages over the radio of other boats or navigational hazards approaching. When we entered the Canal du Nord it was like going from country lanes in Devon to the M25!
Fortunately we were able to lock through together on the Canal du Nord without having any commercials in with us.
Yesterday we cruised for a record 12 hours over 65 kilometres and got to within a couple of hours of the entrance to the Somme canal. As it was late in the day there were already two commercials moored up in the mooring we were headed for so Renaissance squeezed in on the end and we rafted our boat onto them. The locks had closed by now so we knew no large vessels would be along to rock us about and we would leave early again in the morning. Terry, unfortunately, was up at 1.30am sawing tree branches off which were overhanging and scraping the roof of his boat keeping them awake!
This morning we entered the peaceful tranquil waters of the Somme. It will be home for us for a few weeks now, time to really slow down and 'smell the roses' again. We have been told we are in for a treat. Lots more to come on that in the next few blogs. But to finish here's just a little treat we had from the boulangerie, hard to resist and tasted as good as it looks!
Nice to spend time with you and Chris, it was a hard few days but now we can all relax and smell those poppies.
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